Breakthrough Decodes 'Classical Holy Grail'

wka writes "Scientists at Oxford University have made a major breakthrough in their study of a large collection of Greek and Roman writings. Many of the documents known as the 'Oxyrhynchus Papyri' (found at 'ancient rubbish dump in central Egypt') are 'meaningless to the naked eye - decayed, worm-eaten and blackened by the passage of time.' Using an infrared technique originally developed for use with satellite imaging, scientists are able to view the original writing, which 'could lead to a 20 per cent increase in the number of great Greek and Roman works in existence'. Thus far, works by Sophocles, Lucian, Euripides, Hesiod and others have been (re-)discovered. Additionally, scientists think they 'are likely to find lost Christian gospels.' (via The Light of Reason)"

Comments

This is just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dan Brown just had his next idea for a book...

Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[mrRay720]

'could lead to a 20 per cent increase in the number of great Greek and Roman works in existence'

Well no, but it could certainly increase the number of them that we can read.

Additionally, scientists think they 'are likely to find lost Christian gospels.'

What's the betting that the one that reads "'The Bible' copyright 134AD, Any resemblance to people past or present is purely coincidental" is quickly covered up?

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[Denyer]

What's the betting that the one that reads "'The Bible' copyright 134AD

Or the Red Dwarf version:

Newsreader: Good evening. Here is the news on Friday, the 27th of Geldof. Archeologists near Mount Sinai have discovered what is believed to be a missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon-dated in Bonne. If genuine, it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is believed to read, "To my darling Candy. All characters portrayed within this book are fictitous and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental." The page has been universally condemned by church leaders.

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[STrinity]

For a very interesting read, and a very thought provoking read, try:

Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

It really shows how much the Roman Catholic church has lied, cheated and killed to remain in power.

Too bad it's a work of fiction.

Look, I'm a hard-core atheist who believes organized religion is the biggest scam ever created, but that doesn't mean I have to accept every crazy depredation laid against a church. HBHG belongs in the same category with books about J. Edgar Hoover being on the Grassy Knoll, and Elvis living in Peoria under an alias created for him by the Federal Witness Protection Program.

And while we're at it, the Catholics didn't burn witches in the dark ages; it was a heresy to even believe in them until the High Middle Ages, and it was the Protestants who made witch hunting an organized sport.

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that every scrap of paper or stone tablet that happens to be dug up must always be attributed to religion?

Because they generally were religious in nature. Remember that way back in the early days of writing that very few people could read and write. Usually on the religious and ruling classes could do so. Comparing what we find from 2000 years ago to what we have on our hard drives now is comparing apples to oranges.

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[Thomas Miconi]

Crackpot alert !

It's highly likely that Jesus had a wife. There's strong evidence to show that Jesus had Rabbii training, and strong evidence that his wife was Mary Magdelene, aka Mary of Bethany (yes, the one and same person). During that era, it was extremely unusual for a jewish male to not be married, and a Rabbii had to be married. It was basically a 'law'.

Voodoo theology. See the wikipedia article for a level-headed description of the matter.

The Roman Catholic church has long sought to hide the line of Jesus, spread by Mary Magdelene when she moved to the area of Marseilles.

Actually, in the area of Arles, in a locality which is now known as the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (I should know, I'm from there). Together with Martha, Mary of Bethany, Salome, and Lazarus, among others. Then Lazarus went on to become bishop of Marseilles, Martha went to kill a monster that wreaked havoc in Tarascon, and Magdalene ended her life in the Sainte-Baume moutains.

This happens to be one of the many popular legends that flourished in medieval folk christianism. One of the early bishops of Marseilles was actually called Lazarus, but there is no relation with the resurrected one. Similar stuff occured all over Europe, e.g. Saint-Denis, patron saint of France, has been wrongly identified with Denys the Areopagite. In my own city, Arles, the legendary first bishop Trophimus has been identified with the homonymous disciple of Paul mentioned in the New Testament.

While many such confusions may have arisen out of sincere self-delusion, one should keep in mind that holy relics (which attracted pilgrims in droves) were extremely important at the time, both in terms of prestige and of plain commercial interest. Exposing the relic of a Father of the Church was much more profitable, in any sense, than some obscure 3rd century bishop.

The deal with Clovis was renegged less than 100 years after his death, removing the line of the Menengoverians by the assassination of Dagobert II.

You are an ignorant ass. The Merovingians faded into irrelevance out of sheer incompetence. They were replaced by the descendents of Charles Martel (then a kind of "prime minister", in charge of the actual work of running the empire), not by cunning or assassination, but simply because the guy saved the country and the rest of Europe from Arab domination - which brings us to your next point...

Add to the fact that the Roman Catholic church is highly intolerant of other religions - the murder and war against the Saracens in the 11th century

Look, man, I have no particular sympathy for Catholicism, but you should remember that the relationship between Christian Europe and the Moslem world has been one of constant invasions and counter-invasions - and the Saracens called the first shots in the 7th-8th centuries, until they got their arses kicked big time by Charles Martel, and were driven out by his successors, the Carolingians - eponymous to Martel's grandson, a certain Charlemagne.

When you add up aggressions and atrocities from both sides, all you can say is that there's no winner - only a few million losers.

Thomas-

Re:Potentially Interesting Finds, and a correction

[BlueFashoo]

And while we're at it, the Catholics didn't burn witches in the dark ages; it was a heresy to even believe in them until the High Middle Ages, and it was the Protestants who made witch hunting an organized sport.

First, the high middle ages lasted from 1000-1200 or 1050-1400, depending on your source. Either way, they started just before the time period given by the GP.

Second, the most famous witch hunting manuel is the Malleus Maleficarum, written by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, on orders of the Pope Innocent VIII, a Catholic. The papal bull was issured on Dec. 9, 1484. The protestant reformation didn't kick off until 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his edicts to the door. There were earlier attempts, but none of them ignited like his did. Henry V, in 1419, prosecuted his stepmother, Joan of Navarre, for attempting to kill him via witchcraft. So, what we can see is that witches and witch hunting were in vogue before the protestants were around.

That's all well and good, but..

[ShaunC]

..can it decipher doctors' handwriting on prescription pads? That would be a momentous scientific advance!

Obligatory...

[Attaturk]

Euripides papyri you pay for 'em.

Re:rawr

[FidelCatsro]

Anciant pornography is less likely to show in literary work and far more likely to be done in paint as often has been the case .

We have plenty of examples of this, we do have a fair bit of background from many already avaiable anciant greek and roman works as to the culture of morality revolving around sexual attitudes back then.

These works are more likely to be a boon to the study of the more esoteric areas of the cultures , not that i dont doubt we will find some works relating to the sexuality of the cultures , This is by far in a way not a main area of study.

Though you are right that eroticism has driven many technoligies , but this is more of particular note in more represed cultures, as the current theorys go the anciant Greek and (earlyer) anciant Roman society were far less prudish about their bodys then we tend to be nowadays so pornography would be far less prolific as it tends to thrive where sexuality is less open.

Classicist 3 Scientists

[Anonymous Coward]

As a classicist, I want to express the incredible debt we owe to physical sciences. We dig stuff up all the time we can't read, and rely on chemists and physicists to find a way to get to the text. The Vindolandum tables, for instance - slats of wood on which Roman legionaires in Britan wrote letter on, and which were burned. Chemists managed to trace the residue of the ink on the wooden remains and we have volumes of personal correpondence.

In this case, lost works by Sopholces are invaluable; we have only 7 of his plays complete. Any scrap we can add to the corpus provides a much better perspective of greek tragedy in general. And the possibility of finding lost gospels is always exciting for those of us interested in the development of Christianity.

So to sum it up: Thanks for the help, guys! We'll be sure to include your names when people start asking who's responsible for the next crappy sword-and-sandal flick!

Re:Classicist 3 Scientists

[kfg]

"In this case, lost works by Sopholces are invaluable; we have only 7 of his plays complete."

As Carl Sagan explained it:

Imagine that we had some plays by this Shakespeare fellow, Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus, Cymbaline, Pericles, The Life of Timon of Athens, The Winter's Tale and Troilus and Cressida.

Fine plays all. We know from the record that he wrote a few other plays that were well regarded in his time, but alas, those have been lost.

KFG

This is exciting but not particularly new...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm writing a dissertation on the use of digital imaging technology applied to archaeological artefacts, so have been researching this sort of thing recently.

The use of multispectral imaging (MSI) to view ancient papyri has been going on for some years now, with the following being some of the most interesting projects:

- recovering text from a manuscript containing 10th century copies of some of Archimedes works which had been erased and over-written in the 12th century. http://www.thewalters.org/archimedes/frame.html

- similar to the project above, this is the recovery of carbonised Roman papyri found in Herculaneum (which was covered in 100 feet of lava during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-14522 44_1,00.html

There are also lots of other artefact imaging projects, such as that being carried out by the Digital Hammurabi Project (http://www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi/), who want to digitise (make high-res 3D computer models of) ancient cuneiform tablets or the work at the University of Kentucky which may allow text to be 'read' without the artefact being touched at all - using a CT scan which can be decoded on a computer http://www.research.uky.edu/odyssey/fall04/seales. html

Awesome stuff...

Now don't let them in on this...

[gt_swagger]

But I've discovered it's really an ancient Linux (kernel 0.2.1), where all console output is put on paper. What did they find important enough to try and save? Apparently the following command, entered over and over:
$ fortune

Copyright?

[MarkByers]

I hope these works are not going to be reprinted without fully compensating the original authors, and their descendants.

i'm waiting

[Rageon]

Until it's capable of decoding Ogg Vorbis, I'm not buying it.

When they find it ...

[cablepokerface]

'Classical Holy Grail'

... for God's sake let them drink using the wooden cup and not the golden. I tell you, I've seen it happen before, I know.

Re:God willing...

[Fished]

It's already been written: Matthew 5-7. You might want to take a read sometime.

Re:twenty + comments

[Denyer]

I hate the elitists who seek to tear down instead of build!

That's actually the criticism many people have of Christianity, you realise? As pertaining to trying to fit findings to a theory rather than theory to available evidence.

Reading the article (which is a form of heresy in itself...) this is an exciting development, though it does make you wonder how many previous archaelogical finds got discarded over the years because no-one had an inkling as to their possible value.

Non-Ecumenical Gospels

[TheMediaWrangler]

I am fascinated to hear that more gospels may be revealed. The Gospel of Thomas was enlightening and actually led me to a better understanding of mainstream Christianity. Non-ecumenical gospels are fascinating because they haven't been highly tainted through interpretations and translations.

The significance of "new" gospels...

[Fished]

As a student of the New Testament and early Christianity, I have to say that discoveries of "new" gospels are rarely very interesting. There was an explosion of gospel narratives starting in the late 2nd century (say 175). Most of these narratives are quite fantastic and have virtually no historical vallue. (Think of a 50 foot tall cross walking out of Jesus tomb, shouting imprecations upon Jerusalem.) More imporantly than their content, they are so late that any trace of historical content is purely derivative of the four canonical gospels.

N.B. I don't include Thomas in quite this category - it is a much more complicated case. But, despite the shrill nonsense that comes from the entertainment industry (anybody see the epigraph on "Stigmata") most scholars, myself included, would not regard Thomas in its present form as even being in the same class as the 4 canonical gospels.

At any rate, I suspect that any "lost gospels" found here will be of limited interest, mostly to scholars and pedants. Move along, nothing to see here.

Re:The significance of "new" gospels...

[eddy]

>Think of a 50 foot tall cross walking out of Jesus tomb, shouting imprecations upon Jerusalem.

Yeah, because that's just sooo much more fantastic than floating axes and talking bushes.

Re:The significance of "new" gospels...

[Anonymous Coward]

Early gospels have virtually no historical value? What the hell? That's like claiming that the Federalist Papers or the Declaration of Independence are of little historical value.

I'm guessing you're referring to 'historical' in the sense of the gospels recording historical events. What about the rest of the world? People used the rhetoric and ideas of Christianity to address problems outside the usual scope of the religion, or tried to mold the religion to fit personal or political objectives. These lost gospels tell us how people use religion, whether or not the religion has any sort of cosmic truth to it.

And, as scholars are the people who write the history books, they are the ones who determin what has historical value.

Your post reminds me of the religion students who used to take Greek with me at university. "Why are we reading Attic Greek?" they would ask, "We only need Koine to read the Bible!" There's far more to the ancient world than the 50-something (depending on denomination) books of the Bible, and even the Bible doesn't represent a self-contained system of information.

Re:Bibles

[wnknisely]

I'd add additionally that there have been controversies in Christianity from the get-go. (A number of them are alluded to in Paul's writings (which are the earliest Christian literature known.))

The "Lost Gospels" are not lost as much as they were *not preserved* by copiests in the early years of the Church. Fragments of many of them have been known. Occasionally an entire work - like the Gospel of Thomas are discovered.

They are extraordinarily useful for helping people understand the early fights within the Church. And for putting the writings that the Church has deemed Orthodox into perspective (since we finally have access to the documents that the cannonical works were written in response to).

70-some messages so far...

[Dot.Com.CEO]

and I find it amazing that there are people speaking of the possibility of discovering lost gospels as if something like that would be extraordinary. There is a series of lost gospels, otherwise called the "Nag Hamadi library" (google for it) that gave rise to a modern revival of the gnostic church, a set of believes that have deeply influenced popular culture (the Matrix is full of gnostic elements, for example.

Elaine Pagels work in the subject is fascinating - gnosticism itself is fascinating in its contradictions and, if anything, shows how different christianity might have been.

Re:twenty + comments

[ScentCone]

mostly just bashes on Christians

Well, you can imagine why people in the sciences might be a little snarky on this subject. A lot of the history of Christianity revolves around bashing people who try to point out the actual reality of the universe. Those people (scientists) do get a little tired of the unrelenting "seek to tear down" (to use your phrase) attitude from the religious side of the spectrum. So, must of the comments in that tone about this article are made in the context of a more-secular-than-usual audience, and presume a certain world-weariness on this subject.

You don't find this interesting ????

[anat0010]

You don't see historical value here ? How has the 2nd century view of Christ changed from the modern interpretation ?
Your example suggests that only 150 years after his death Christ was viewed as a super-human avenging spirit. 2000 years later we view him as a meek and mild self-sacrificing man. Yet the text of the gospels remains them same.
If you fail to see any interest here, I suspect you are more interested in reiterating the rhetoric of your teachers rather than studying early Christianity and interpreting the scriptures in the context of the epoch in which they were written and the church founded.

Re:You don't find this interesting ????

[Jerf]

Yes, anat0010, that one document changes everything. One document, written by one guy somewhere, with no sanction and the general historical consensus it wasn't worth keeping, and suddenly we have a better understanding of "the 2nd century views of Christ".

By the way, have you read that Unabomber manifesto? Turns out the average American is anti-technology and bombs people through the mail system, which is apparently the primary use of the mail system in 20th century America. And the recent find of "Dianetics" provides a fascinating view into the religious beliefs of the average American of the 20th century.

No, wait a minute, that's not right.

(One of the persistent fallacies is that the humans of the past are somehow different than today, particularly in their uniformity. They aren't, and the historically-rejected writings of one guy are about as representative as the same happening today, which is to say, not necessarily useless, but you might only learn about the dominant paranoid schizophrenic fantasies of the day (like black helicopters and mind-control beams today), not the common man. You are getting one very small fragment of an image of the time, don't make the mistake of focusing on one small piece and projecting it out on the entire time period. You are the blind man examining the elephant, not a well-informed almost-omniscient observer.)

There is more than enough data to study the 2nd century church, one need not over-intepret one piece of evidence to push an agenda.

Nonsense

[Fished]

Critical scholarship (i.e. scholarship that has no a priori commitment to the historical reliability of the gospels) dates the gospels more or less as follows:

Mark - 68-75
Matthew - 80
Luke - 80-85
John - 90

Then, consider that most scholars date Thomas in its present form no earlier than 145. Any "new" gospel is likely to be much later. Further, there is good evidence to suggest that the Canonical four existed in proto-forms much earlier, with a proto-Mark dating back to the 40's.

Also, it doesn't help your case that you point to a couple of "Jesus Myth" sites to bolster your case. You realize that these people are considered to be a joke in the world of New Testament scholarship, don't you? The "anti-Jesus" advocates are far worse than the "pro-Jesus" advocates, so far as distorting history goes. I would suggest you read a good, standard intro to new testament, such as Raymond Brown's, before you continue to spout this bilge.

Re:Nature of faith

[BenjyD]

From the original comment:

> Evidence doesn't matter.

Therefore, the fact that you can disprove the point doesn't matter. The tall-tree thing is from some Dawkins book, a belief held by a tribe with no access to space travel, telescopes etc so they couldn't disprove the point, anyway.

Faith, as the original poster puts it, is the belief in something without evidence. It is logically inconsistent: if somebody believes one thing without evidence, why not everything? How does one decide which is a 'right' faith? Is there actually some evidence required? At what point does it stop, then, being something you believe through faith and something you know through evidence?

Physics is not a belief system, it cannot be used to justify anything. It's just a collection of theories which appear, given the evidence we have, to describe our universe reasonably well. As such, you can't judge physics: it just is. E may stop equaling mc2 tomorrow, that doesn't mean physics stops.

Faith, on the other hand, as a construct of human thought, can be judged as good or bad.

Bible = 'acceptable gospels'

[seven of five]

The bible has already gone thru zillions of revisions, leaving out many parts along the way. Remember, there was a huge pile of hallucinatory writing done by starving desert dwelling hermits. They had to toss out the completely incoherent gibberish so they could publish the quasi-coherent hallucinations.

William Burroughs and Ted Kaczynsky had predecessors.

Re:twenty + comments

[novakyu]

Well, you can imagine why people in the sciences might be a little snarky on this subject.

The problem is, while religions do not make it a secret that they have a particular worldview and a set of beliefs (and thus, sometimes violent and not-so-righteous acts to enforce those beliefs), science is supposed to be objective, fact-based, and experimentally-verified. I'm not here to say that scientists should be completely free of bias or any personal prejudices, but they definitely shouldn't let those things guide nor hinder their work in science---not anything more than initial inspiration, anyway. Religion-bashing does not belong to the "people in sciences". Religion, as far as science is concerned, should be irrelevant---personally significant (either in a positive way or negative way) to a particular scientist, maybe; but it should in no way influence (either positively or negatively) his work in science.

Is this a double-standard? Yes. But I put forward this double-standard as a double believer in scientific principles and Christ. And, as much as I don't like fundamentalists standing in the way of scientific progress, I am appalled by atheists exploiting success of science (which neither presumes nor denies existence of God, so far, at least) to bash religion. I would even go as far as to say that such coattailing is more cowardly act than oppressing minority beliefs under the authority of a powerful Church (a couple centuries back, anyway).

Re:twenty + comments

[Thomas Miconi]

I am appalled by atheists exploiting success of science (which neither presumes nor denies existence of God, so far, at least)

Science does not and cannot disprove God (i.e. the idea of a supernatural Creator): such a concept is beyond science altogether. It is not possible to prove or disprove the fact that the world was initially created by a sentient being.

However science, or even plain common sense, puts a lot of strain on religions, that is, particular teachings based on sacred revelations.

Religion consists in switching off your brain and believing the unbelievable. Not only that, but believing in one particular set of unbelievable things, to the exclusion of any other. Hint: What is the difference between a religion and a cult, except for size and political impact ?

I would even go as far as to say that such coattailing is more cowardly act than oppressing minority beliefs under the authority of a powerful Church

Show me a preacher burnt at the stake (as in real fire and real charred flesh, not metaphorically) by a council of scientists and I'll agree with you.

Thomas-

We have no original texts

[cquark]

And for your general information, the other gospels and new testament works have not been "tainted" through translation or interpretation- anyone who wants to can still access the original greek of those texts.

We have no original texts; the earliest texts that we have are fragments of copies of copies. Unsurprisingly, these multi-generation copies disagree with each other in places. One well known disagreement is the ending of Mark. The modern ending is found in none of the earliest manuscripts, and when we do begin finding manuscripts with an ending, we find two different endings. The Catholic Church declared the currently popular ending canonical at the Council of Trent in the 16th century.

There is also no "the Bible." Each major branch of the Christian church has their own Bibles, with numbers of books ranging from about two dozen for the Syrian church to 66 for the Protestants to 81 for the Ethiopian church. The most common dates I've seen for the Gospel of Thomas are 100-150, which puts it in about the same range as the 90-120 dates for the Gospel of John.

Since you brought up Paul, it's worth examining the authenticity of his writings too. For example, the Ethiopian Bible has 3 letters to the Corinthians, while the Catholic/Protestant Bible has only 2 such letters. Several of his epistles, including 3rd Corithians, were debated strongly when the Catholic church began putting together its Biblical canon in the 4th century. The Catholics rejected 3rd Corinthians, but kept several of the other more dubious epistles, which modern scholars now have come to same conclusion that some 4th century bishops did--they were forgeries.

The controversy over what was really canonical or not erupted again in Europe with the Protestant Reformation. Luther rejected the apostolicity of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation, and moved them to the back of his translation of the Catholic Bible. Modern rediscoveries of the gnostic gospels, and communication between the European branch of Christianity with branches in Asia and Africa with their different Bibles have brought these controversies to life again.